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Every year, the holiday shopping season is a critical opportunity for merchants like you to connect with customers and promote your products. Competition is always intense during peak periods, while shoppers remain more informed and intentional than ever – which often means taking the time to thoroughly research and compare products. In fact, research shows that 79% of consumers say they’re more confident when they feel they’ve done the necessary research.1 This desire for information is what’s driving consumers to actively seek out your page for valuable insights before they take the plunge. Leveraged correctly, this is a golden opportunity to connect with your audience.
This year also brings the additional challenge of a later Black Friday and Cyber Monday, creating a shorter peak season. However, while this shortened window might seem challenging, it also means a more concentrated burst of energy and excitement, allowing you to maximise your efforts during this crucial period.
To help you prepare and turn the season from stress into success, we’ve gathered expert advice for overcoming challenges this holiday shopping season. The secret? Leveraging Performance Max (PMax) assets.
Remember:
PMax is a goal-based campaign type that allows you to access your entire Google Ads inventory for a single campaign. Running in tandem with your keyword-based campaigns, PMax can help you convert customers from every Google channel.
PMax assets are the creative elements (i.e. text, image, video, logo, business name, final URL) used to construct your ads across various Google networks.
Your ability to tailor your PMax assets is a significant advantage for your business
While some businesses rely on large-scale advertising, you have unique advantages: agility and personalisation. With PMax, you can connect with your customers on a deeper level by tailoring your assets to highlight the specifics of the products you think they’d be most interested in. This focused approach allows you to create meaningful connections that stand out in today's crowded marketplace. Your specialisation is your strength, enabling you to deliver a personalised experience that resonates with your target audience.
Harness the potential of customers' multiple touchpoints
While it's true that the customer journey is becoming increasingly complex, this presents a unique opportunity for you. A recent study showed that consumers are increasingly deliberate (i.e going through multiple touchpoints), and two-thirds state that purchase decisions require more effort than before.2 This is where PMax truly shines. By going beyond single-channel campaigns, PMax allows you to connect with your audience across their entire journey, from initial awareness to final purchase.
Think of it this way: your customers are already exploring multiple touchpoints; your Google Ads acquisition reports likely reflect this, showing a diverse range of conversion paths. With PMax, you can be present at each of those touchpoints, nurturing those warmer leads and guiding them towards conversion. It's about meeting your customers where they are and providing a seamless, personalised experience across all channels.
Essentially, PMax empowers you to embrace all of the wonderful complexities of the modern customer journey and turn it into a competitive advantage.
What you need to do
To unlock the full potential of your assets this peak season, we advise you to focus on tailored asset groups and compelling promotional assets. Here’s how:
a. Asset groups: Your personalised advertising arsenal
Think of asset groups as your own bespoke toolkit of targeted messaging and visuals, each carefully crafted to resonate with specific customer segments and seasonal themes that work for your brand. These groups allow you to go beyond a one-size-fits-all approach, delivering highly relevant ads that speak directly to your target audience's interests and needs.
Google has identified four mindsets for shoppers3 for the holiday period (the so-called 4 Ds). You could use these to create core asset groups, each tailored towards a different customer segment:
Deliberate: These consumers are proactively seeking inspiration, conducting research, and purchasing long before key events, usually starting as early as May.
Deal-seeking: On the lookout throughout the season, this category of shoppers start researching early to capitalise on the best deals. They invest time over money.
Determined: These shoppers are resourceful, and engage with both online and in-store options to complete their shopping. With Black Friday occurring five days later in 2024, fewer days to shop will mean more shoppers fall into this category.
Devoted: These shoppers display last-minute shopping behaviours with a tendency for self-gifting. These consumers usually shop past peak season, up until late January.
Tip: You don’t have to stick to these specific groups, but you can identify many more personas relevant to your business. With asset groups dedicated to "stocking stuffers", "festive décor", or "gifts for him/her", showcasing products that perfectly align with their search intent.
b. Promotional assets: The spark that ignites conversions
Within each asset group, the strategic use of promotional assets is key to capturing peak season demand. These assets are the visual and textual elements that grab attention, communicate value, and drive action.
Here are some best practices for your assets:
Catch attention by tailoring assets to your audiences. Now that you understand different shopper mindsets, you should leverage this knowledge to tailor content accordingly. Consider incorporating festive themes and lifestyle shots to evoke emotions and inspire purchases.
Don’t forget that images and videos work hand-in-hand with headlines and descriptions. While images catch the eye, the headline and description can be a major trigger for clicks. Leveraging your unique selling points and promotional offers in your headlines and descriptions is absolutely essential during peak season.
Discount and offer badges: While they’re not directly assets, visually highlighting your promotions with clear and prominent discount tags or special offer badges often makes a big difference – shoppers can’t help but notice.
Tip: You can see which product has price drop, sale and promotion annotations in Merchant Center Next by going into “All product” and filtering with one of the “has X badge”. See the image below for an example:
Finally, remember:
Refresh regularly. Keep your asset groups and promotional assets updated with fresh content and seasonal themes to maintain relevance and excitement.
Monitor performance. Track the performance of each asset group and make data-driven adjustments to optimise your results.
Experiment and iterate. Test different combinations of images, videos, headlines, and descriptions to see what resonates most with your audience. FeedX is a super useful A/B testing tool for shopping.
Strategise beyond Q4. Holiday shoppers will still be active until the end of January, especially our devoted shoppers.
We hope this has been helpful. By strategically harnessing the power of PMax and utilising promotional assets within tailored asset groups, you can create a highly targeted and persuasive advertising experience for your customers. Google's AI-powered algorithms optimise the delivery of your ads to the right audience at the right time, helping you maximise your reach, engagement, and sales.
With all of this in your arsenal, you should be able to stay ahead of the competition during peak season and beyond.
Sources:
1, 2. Think with Google (2024), Confident consumers do more than buy. They lift metrics that matter.
3. Think with Google (2024), Understand customer mindsets to make every holiday connection count.
